Author Archives: Ingrid Biese

Uncovering so-called ‘truths’

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been two weeks since I last published a post. All I can say is I’ve been very busy, I feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. But I’m not going to make this a habit; I do plan to continue updating my blog weekly, like I’ve done so far. In case anyone was very worried. Or noticed.

One of the things that has kept me busy lately is teaching, and yesterday I taught what must have been my most inspirational class so far, at least for me. I’m teaching a course in HRM (human resource management) and this particular lecture was on power and control in organizations, and who knew that this would really make the students tick. They had so many insightful thoughts and comments that they shared with me and I have to say, I really enjoyed our dialogue.

But what was most interesting was our discussion on so-called ‘truths’. We were talking about the societal structures and systems in which we are embedded; structures and systems that we take for granted and that we have lost the ability to question or even see – much less change – because they have become ‘truths’. It’s the things we think of as obvious, natural, or common sense, partly because we think that’s they way they have always been. But let me tell you something, they haven’t always been that way and they aren’t natural; people have created them. They aren’t meant to be, they are just the way we have assumed things should be done for as long as we can remember.

Now I asked my students to think of so called ‘truths’ in society, things we take for granted, and to think about whether or not they have to be truths and whether things could be done differently. This was the absolute best part of the whole class. Time just ran out too quickly and I’m thinking of dedicating a whole lecture to this in the future, because it is just so interesting. But here are some of the things they came up with:

  • Growth and productivity are not necessarily something to strive for.
  • The concept of de-growth is interesting, but de-growth as a word is problematic because we will always continue growing and evolving as people and societies. You can’t unlearn or ‘undevelop’, you can only go forward. So even if your goal is not to continuously grow, it still doesn’t involve regressing to a previous state.
  • Careers do not have to progress upwards. They can go forwards, backwards, sideways…
  • Women are not necessarily family oriented. However men might be.
  • The way we teach in schools is not necessarily the best way to teach. It might not be providing us will the skills we really need. We need to question our education system.
  • Democracy may not be the best way. We need to come up with a new system because if we continue the way we are society is going self-destruct.

You get the idea.

I was pleased of course because my students and I shared an interest and we engaged in a really meaningful discussion. But what pleases me even more is that they are so open to thinking critically and questioning the status quo. I sincerely hope that they retain this ability once they embark on their careers and become assimilated in organizational working cultures. Because this is something that we should all do more of. Whenever something is obvious, whenever we know something to be true, we should all stop and question. We need to ask ourselves – and each other – why? Why does it have to be that way? And the fantastic thing is that it doesn’t. It doesn’t have to be that way, we only thought it did. And that my friends, that is how change comes about. Change for the better.

My five-minute diary

Posted on by
Reply

A friend of mine challenged me about a month ago. She challenged me to start keeping a five-minute diary. Apparently the five-minute diary is an established concept where you at bedtime, and possibly also in the morning I can’t really remember, spend five minutes writing down positive thoughts or the positive things you’ve experienced during the day. Just quick bullet points. The reason she suggested it was that I was talking about how when thing are very hectic, and let’s face, in this day and age they mostly are, I feel like everything I experience during the day just disappears from my consciousness. I may be very present in the moment but then when I move on and start doing something else it almost feels like it never was. So she suggested writing these things that I wanted to remember down in order not only to be able to actually remember them, but also to give me a chance to reflect.

Well, it sounded like a good idea to me so I accepted the challenge, but a modified version of it. I don’t like the idea of just writing down positive thoughts. I’m interested in all my thoughts and experiences, whether positive or negative or something else. It is not only the positive that is meaningful. Without reflecting over the whole range of emotions I experience, I don’t think I would ever grow as a person, and honestly I think it would make life kind of boring. Besides I find that it is especially in the contradictions that real learning and development takes place. It is in those moments that you actually learn something about yourself.

This constant striving for positivity that you see all over the place gets to me. Sometimes I see 365 days of positivity challenges circulate, sometimes it’s three positive things per day seven days in a row. Positivity is positively all the rage in this day an age. It actually stems from the positive psychology movement that came about at the end of the 1990’s about the time motivational speaking became so popular. Positivity became the answer to career success, to health, to life. However, although being positive is a good thing in many situations, and I would say I’m generally pretty optimistic myself, there really isn’t a lot of empirical evidence to support that positive psychology really works. On the contrary, it is argued that striving for constant positivity can, instead of leading to success, actually make people feel like failures when they just can’t live up to expectations and be positive all the time because they are experiencing the whole range of emotions, which is natural and necessary in life. (See The search for happiness for more on why this is problematic.)*

So I accepted the challenge, but with modifications. I said that instead of listing only positive things, I would write down the three most important things or thoughts that I experienced each day. And that is what I’ve been doing almost every evening for the past month or so. Sometimes I forget, but mostly I don’t. It doesn’t take long although I sometimes have trouble sticking to only three points, so I’ve discarded that rule. I write as many points as I want; sometimes it’s three and sometimes it’s more, but I don’t think I’ve ever written more than five or six. Sticking to bullet points is actually quite liberating because it keeps it short and I don’t try to outdo myself composing well-written diary entries, which I wouldn’t have the energy to do every evening. Sometimes my points are work related, often not. Sometimes it’s just something beautiful that I’ve seen or an interesting thought I’ve had. Sometimes I write about positive things or things I’m thankful for, sometimes it’s things I’m frustrated or feeling very ambiguous over. I don’t spend a lot of time analyzing these thoughts as I keep it short, so I’m a bit unsure of what the long run benefits are going to be, but for the moment at least it feels meaningful. This five-minute diary gives me a chance to reflect over the day, and remember the things worth remembering. And capture time in a notebook.

So thank you my friend! I’m pretty sure I would never have come up with this myself.

 

* I can also recommend one of my favorite books: Psychobabble: Exploding the Myths of the Self-Help Generation by Stephen Briers. Or if you’re really interested: Virtues and Vices in Positive Psychology: A Philosophical Critique by Kristján Kristjánsson (available on Google books)

Extreme makeover for little girls

Posted on by
2

My daughter just showed me something pretty awful: a game on an online game site for children. It’s called ‘Extreme Makeover’, and yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. You have an avatar – a virtual doll – and you give her a makeover. You start with the nose – a nose job of course (you cut with a scalpel along a dotted line). Because all little girls need to think about having a presentable nose, any old nose (with character) will certainly not do. After that, it’s the cheeks: collagen cheek injections for plumper cheeks, and then the same of course – collagen injections again – for plumper lips. After that you use a hammer and a chisel to sculpt the jawbone (I don’t even know what the correct term for that is), and then finish with hair implants for thicker and fuller hair. Now the doll/avatar/virtual self is ready for the spa. But before that she needs to lose weight of course because that’s what you have to do if you’re a girl and you want to be pretty. Unfortunately I was so aghast that I can’t remember exactly how much weight this virtual doll managed to lose, but I think it must have been about 30 pounds or almost 14 kilos.

Let’s let that sink in for a moment.

Can someone explain to me how anyone in their right mind can think that it’s ok to develop a game like this for little girls? For anyone? Girls have enough to deal with as it is with the over-sexualization of girlhood and pressures to be thin, pretty, desired, and demure. We have cultural ideals that send them the most mixed and ambiguous messages, and now we’re not only teaching little girls that it’s what you look like on the outside that counts, we’re also normalizing going to any lengths to achieve that perfect look. It’s drastic plastic or nothing girls! It’s insane, it’s shocking, and, frankly, it’s disgusting.

Help me out here. How do we get this game taken off the internet?

Time for reinvention!

Posted on by
Reply

A friend dropped by the other day. Let’s call him Bob. Bob was wondering what I was up to, and I told him I was preparing for a course in HRM (human resource management), which I’m teaching this semester. And his reaction was, “HRM?!” And I said, “Human resource management, you should know that! (Bob is a corporate executive in a company which most certainly has an HR department so he definitely knows what HRM is.)” And he said, “No no, what I meant was why on Earth are you teaching HRM of all things??” And I said, “Well, they needed someone to teach the course just like last fall when I taught the organizational behavior course.” And his response was, “Well yes, organizational behavior is interesting, but human resource management, really? Why would you want to teach that?”

Well, I don’t know if you’re thinking what I’m thinking, but I’m thinking that this really says a lot about HRM! Or at least about how people see HRM. I mean here we have a corporate executive who I would guess has been in the work force for about 20 years or so, and in a managerial position for at least half that time. Granted, not in human resources, but he has most certainly known and worked with his fair share of HR managers, and yet his reaction is what it is. Not very positive I may add, in case you didn’t get it. And I assure you; Bob isn’t alone.

In my experience, HR departments are among the most misunderstood and least appreciated departments in the history of the organization. And that must certainly take its toll. They are a support function and not a part of the core business, and therefore not considered as strategic as other departments and functions. At the same time, employees are often considered to be a company’s most important resource. Ironic isn’t it, because that sounds pretty strategic to me. And HR departments are important. However, it seems their greatest challenge is the associations the letter combination ‘HR’ triggers in people like Bob.

This is often the biggest problem when trying to create change. The language we use to talk about things, effectively keeps us locked in our old ways. Our words mean something specific to us, which makes it very difficult so see things differently. We need to create new words in order to really be able to change the way we think, or in this case see something in a new light. And let’s face it; HR professionals really need a new word.

So I suggest we scrap the term human resources. If you think about it, it is actually rather production oriented anyway, and doesn’t really embrace individuality or diversity. Nor does it recognize employees as the people they are with their individual wants and needs, which is what we’re trying to do more of, right? We need something new to call HR professionals, so that they can do what it is that they are trained to do. So let’s do that, let’s reinvent HR! Let’s create a new word that doesn’t make people go, ‘yes, but why?!’ like Bob did.

A new year and no resolutions

Posted on by
Reply

It’s a new year and I’ve been reading everywhere all about fresh starts and being better, healthier, and happier. I really don’t feel the novelty everyone always talks about after the New Year. Except for a digit in my calendar having changed from a five to a six, I feel the same; I’m struggling with the same challenges and working on the same projects as in December.

No, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions and I never make any. A friend posted a picture on Facebook that said, “I can’t believe it’s been a year since I didn’t become a better person”, and somehow, although it was supposed to be funny and I did get a good laugh, it really summed it up for me. On many levels.

Fresh starts are good, but for them to actually happen they need to be the result not only of a real need, but also of an epiphany and an understanding that change is absolutely essential. It takes planning and commitment and you have to be systematic. No wonder very few spontaneously made New Year’s resolutions actually make it past January. In my research, I’ve seen that no matter how much people want to do things differently in life, they don’t unless they experience something that provides them with a sense of urgency. And that can and should happen any time during the year, not just on January 1st.

But maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe that’s not what New Year’s resolutions are about. Maybe they’re about dreaming, about imagining a better you, and that even though you’re not actually prepared to do anything to get there, they sort of give you energy, inspiration, and why not hope? Because dreaming is important, where there are no dreams, there is no hope.

Writing this, I’m actually starting to feel a bit like the Grinch of New Years. Maybe the whole point is not to be so sensible all the time. Maybe our musings don’t always have to lead to action, progress, or success. Maybe they can just be for the sake of being.

Having said that, there are a couple of things I would like for 2016:

First, I need to learn how to chill. Although much of what I’ve been doing during the past year has been new and exciting, it has also been pretty exhausting. This is one of the side effects of opting out and in, you find yourself outside your comfort zone, doing many things for the first time without being able to fall back on previous experience. I need to remember to breathe, to trust myself and my abilities, and to give myself a break every now and then. And also literally take a break so I can spend more time with family, my parents in particular. Because that’s what’s important in life: the people you spend it with.

The other thing is to figure out what my next step is going to be. I find myself, at least mentally, with one foot in the academic world and one in the business world. I actually really like it that way, because there is so much in both worlds that really does and doesn’t work and they complement each other in many ways. I’ll save the details for another post, but until then I can say that it is becoming all the more clear to me that my opting out and in journey is exactly that – a journey – and I’m nowhere near the finish line. So during 2016 I will focus on figuring out what that next step is, and on taking it. I have to remember to stay in the driver’s seat though. After all, that was the whole point of opting out to begin with!

Enough is enough

Posted on by
Reply

A good friend of mine said something very interesting the other day. She said that people just don’t know when it’s enough. She was talking about exhaustion and how someone she knew was on the brink of burnout and had actually already approached her boss to say that if she takes on any more she will break. My friend’s comment was that she, in reality, wasn’t on the brink of exhaustion anymore, she was already beyond that. You don’t generally go to your boss before you have too much to handle. Because the threshold to bring it up at work is so high, you only approach someone after it’s gone too far.

She sees things very clearly sometimes, my friend; I admire her for that, and this time I think she really hit the nail on its head. As a society, we really don’t know when enough is enough. We kind of go overboard with most things, whether it’s consumerism, depleting our planet of its natural resources, health trends, makeovers, parenting, or just simply work. How do you know at work when you’ve done enough? When you’re good enough? Your employer will take whatever he or she can get and you as an individual are responsible to draw the line. But in this age of major and multidimensional insecurity, how do you know you’ve done enough to stay safe and stay in the game? With an employer who is always asking for more it’s impossible to know.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a colleague a while back. He was recounting an interview he had seen with Rod Stewart, I think it was, or someone equally rich and famous anyway. And Rod was talking about how he wakes up every morning, thinking, “Am I comfortable yet?” And he’s a multimillionaire! This sounds pretty idiotic, but it kind of epitomizes the fear of disposability we suffer from that I wrote about last week. Even (or especially?) a talented, rich, and famous rock star doesn’t feel comfortable with the fleeting nature of success and security. The fact is, in this day and age things can change very fast.

So how can we possibly know when enough is enough if we don’t feel secure or comfortable in our jobs? When we constantly try to live up to unrealistic expectations?

Well, that’s a rhetorical question. In the meantime I’m going to try to recognize when enough is enough in my life, and actually slow down enough to enjoy the holiday season with family and friends. I’m going to take some time off from my blog and will be back after the New Year. Until then Happy Holidays and all the best for 2016!

Sometimes you need to fail in order to succeed

Posted on by
4

A few days ago I found out that I didn’t get a job I applied for. For a while it seemed very promising and I was already mentally preparing to accept this job and considering the practicalities I needed to figure out in order to do that. But then I came second, so alas, no job.

Writing this I realize what a long way I have come. Not too long ago I wouldn’t have breathed a word to anyone that I was applying for a job much less announced globally that I didn’t get it like I’m doing now. I just wouldn’t have broadcasted my failure. Only it wasn’t a failure. It was actually a very good process for me. First of all it made me really think about what I want to do and what I can imagine myself doing. And I realized that I could actually imagine myself going back and working in an organization again. My own opting out and in experience continues to evolve, it is not static, and like so many people I have interviewed I also realize that the choices I made when I opted out weren’t forever. So that was good to really have a chance to think about my situation, my terms, and what I want to do. Also, although I would have been very happy to have gotten the job, I’m actually also very happy to be able to continue living the life I’m living right now the way I do. So what initially felt like a waste of energy since it didn’t really lead anywhere was actually quite meaningful. And besides, as an academic I deal with a lot of rejection all the time so in a way I’m kind of getting used to it. Scary as that may sound.

But this question of success and failure is interesting. I’ve decided to make a point of sharing my failures and rejections, because it’s important that people know that everyone experiences failures, and actually the people who are very successful usually are because they worked very hard and failed over and over until they succeeded. Their secret is they didn’t give up.

We have a very low tolerance for failure in our society, and organizations especially aren’t very forgiving, which is extremely unfortunate. The thing is, it is from our mistakes and failures that we learn and develop and if we’re terrified of making mistakes, and as a result maybe even getting laid off, we won’t ever dare do anything out of the ordinary or take any risks, which is bad both for personal and organizational development and learning. As inventor Regina Dugan says, “We can’t both fear failure and make amazing new things.”

But overcoming the fear of failure isn’t very easy in this day and age. Zygmunt Bauman talks about something he calls the fear of disposability – a fear of being expendable, of becoming redundant – which is a direct result of the constant flux that is our reality in this fast-changing economy. Organizations and individuals alike need to stay lean and flexible in order to survive the ever more competitive global market. Well, it’s a viscous circle if you ask me.

So what do we do about it? Well like so many other things, this too is organizationally driven. If organizations become more forgiving, they will help create a more forgiving culture, where we can be more accepting of failure. And not only that, I’m convinced that these very organizations will be the big winners in the long run, because people – their employees – will dare and have the space to be more creative, and they will make amazing things, as Dugan says. But in the meantime, I think we should just all become more forgiving as individuals, of ourselves and of each other. And we should be more open about sharing both successes and failures, and not just instagrammable versions of ourselves and our lives.

Let’s change working life as we know it!

Posted on by
2

I read another article yesterday about new meanings of work and how organizations need to start offering people new or different solutions and ways of working to better meet their preferences and needs. I always do a little victory dance (okay, not literally) when I see articles like this. For one it sort of confirms that I’m on to something, but more importantly, it supports my argument that things are finally happening on that front. We are at a crossroads of sorts and now is the time to redefine work as we know it. And the best thing about this is that we can all be involved in this change together.

One thing struck me, though, when reading this article. Although the arguments were good and valid, they really didn’t offer much in the way of concrete solutions or ideas for how this change is going to happen. Or indeed what these new solutions for work could be. And to be honest, I get that a lot too.

The thing is, these new solutions need to be developed together. In other words I have no quick ready-made solutions that organizations can instantly adopt. After all, we’re breaking new ground here. But the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the changes we need really aren’t that major. When people opt out, it isn’t that they don’t want to work, it’s that they don’t want to work the way that they have been. The biggest problem in the jobs they opted out of was that they lacked a sense of control over their lives and their time.

I’m sometimes approached by career coaches who help people find their true self and calling, wondering if we could perhaps work together somehow. I’m all for coaching, I think that coaches do very valuable work and help a lot of people in many different ways. However, in my research I have found that the biggest problem for people who opt out is not that the job they did wasn’t their true calling. Rather it’s the structures and working cultures that cause a lack of coherence and agency (a feeling that one has very little power and control to affect one’s situation), which in turn has a negative effect on wellbeing. After having opted out and in to a new lifestyle and way of working, they report feeling like they are finally doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, which could be understood as a true calling. However this sense of authenticity really isn’t about the job they’re doing, it’s actually a result of finally being able to control their time better; that they can be themselves and don’t have to hide certain aspects (like children who are generally expected to be kept invisible in the corporate sphere, especially for women); and of the sense of coherence that they get because they have more control. In fact, most of them loved what they did before, that really wasn’t the main problem.

So the change that I’m calling for isn’t a change in tasks or areas of responsibility, or even workload. It’s rather a change in systems and policies that allow for more autonomy and control over when, where, and how people work. This means different solutions for different people – some want more autonomy and some want less – but that really shouldn’t be impossible; we have the technology. In practice it will mean setting clear and concrete goals and being able to follow up on these so that it doesn’t become a question of whether or not we trust people to actually do their jobs if we can’t see them. Measuring work in hours as we generally do today really isn’t the answer. I mean just because you sit in your office for eight hours doesn’t mean you’re actually working or creating added value for the whole eight hours.

So the good news is that this really isn’t rocket science; it’s all very doable. It’s rather a question of mindset, which of course can be tricky to change.

People who opt out think long and hard about what works for them and what doesn’t, and based on this they develop terms. I also have terms, which I’ve thought about a lot lately, and I’ve found that I need to keep reminding myself what these terms are, because sometimes I forget. The reason is that organizational culture as we know it is so strongly embedded in our consciousness, that we are very much affected by what we think is expected of us. The terms we develop really aren’t that outrageous because we think we will probably have to compromise to hold down a job (which we need to do because we all have to eat, right?). So these terms and ideal solutions for work that we develop are still very much colored by the understanding we have of what is acceptable. However, being cautious and thinking in terms of old rules and regulations do not a revolution make.

So I would like you to join me in dreaming up what your ultimate solution for work really would be if you didn’t have to take into account organizational cultures, rules, regulations, and traditions. If you could work in any way you wanted (and now I want you to really think out of the box and not worry about what is and isn’t possible) how would you work? What is important to you; what is your ideal set up? Would you do things completely differently, or maybe just change a small but strategic detail? Or maybe not change anything at all?

I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email at theoptingoutblog@gmail.com (emails will be treated confidentially).

It’s time for a change. Let’s create that change together!

Go ahead surprise yourself!

Posted on by
2

Last week I actually celebrated one year as a blogger! I almost missed it, then I noticed and I thought whatever. But then I reconsidered and decided no this needs to be celebrated! There are many reasons; one being that I have a whole year worth of texts collected which is a pretty great achievement. Although writing is one of the main things I do in my job, producing texts can be hard, sometimes downright painful. But here I’ve managed to produce about 70 pages worth of blog posts somewhat effortlessly. Except for a couple of times this fall when I was completely bogged down with work, I haven’t really had to struggle at all to get my thoughts down for The Opting Out Blog. I’m not sure exactly why. I think it’s because I mostly write when ideas come to me. If possible I stop everything and jot them down on anything handy, like a napkin or a receipt, so I don’t generally sit and stare at my screen thinking I should but I can’t. Also, since this is my blog I can write about anything I want, so whatever comes to me is what gets posted. My blog posts don’t get reviewed and accepted or rejected by anyone, nor do they need to meet any particular standards, and that takes some of the pressure off. But despite that, or maybe because of that, I think some of my posts are among the most clearly communicated texts I’ve produced (and my blog has probably helped me with my academic writing as well). But still, I have to add that it’s not that I don’t feel any pressure at all. I do because I have readers and all of a sudden I’m not doing this just for me, I also don’t want to disappoint you. So there is some pressure, which is actually good because it’s what makes me want to keep writing and posting.

So that’s one reason to celebrate. Another reason is that I’ve kept at it for a year, and I’ve found a medium that I really enjoy. I think I’m generally quite tenacious, which I actually didn’t think about myself before. I used to think I was the kind of person who gets easily bored, but it’s not true. I guess I just hadn’t found my thing. At a certain point this fall, I did sort of wonder if my blog is getting old. In this culture of constant reinvention, do I need to reinvent The Opting Out Blog after only a year, because is a year actually a really long time in this age of short-termism and quick fixes? And what would that be? And then I started getting new readers, especially in South America, which is very exciting as this is a continent where my blog really hasn’t been very widely read. And I realized no, as long as I think this is fun, I’m going to keep doing what I want to. It’s my blog after all.

And that brings me to the thing that I think deserves to be celebrated the most: the fact that I actually am a blogger. It’s something that I have been struggling to make a part of my identity because I just haven’t seen myself as a blogger. I don’t know what I think blogging really is, but apparently I’ve had an idea that it is something different than what I’m doing. But funny as it may sound, I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that not only do I have a blog, I also am a blogger. The thing is, I never, ever thought that about myself. I never thought I would blog; the thought of being that public scared the hell out of me. I was telling a friend about this the other day and she said, “and yet you started, how did that happen?” And really, looking back it’s beyond me. How did I sit down, create a blog and actually start publishing posts, which I was so completely terrified of doing? I don’t really know, but I did. I think the most important thing was that I got so much support and encouragement from friends, and I just jumped. So that is definitely the biggest reason to celebrate this one-year anniversary: I managed to surprise myself. I’m doing something I honestly never thought I would, much less like, and it turns out I love it and it makes my life so much richer. So in the spirit of dishing out feel good advice (which I try to avoid, but hey I’m celebrating here), go surprise yourselves! You might just find out you’re capable of things you never dreamed of. And besides, you never know, you might even have a passion out there just waiting to be discovered!

The jealous employer

Posted on by
Reply

The other day while I was conducting an interview, I was told what I every so often hear, that in a family both partners can’t pursue a career. It’s either one or the other because a career is so time consuming and someone needs to take care of the kids. I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now, and I guess I reluctantly have to admit that this person had a point, considering the 24/7 commitment we expect of our employees, at least the ones that are headed for the top. It has been argued that prevalent career models aren’t created for only one person but for one and a half: the one with the job and the one that takes care of everything else. How this is supposed to work, especially in a country like Finland where I live, where there is a tradition of both partners working, and where nannies are rare, escapes me. Who takes care of the work that is supposed to be done by that extra half person? Even though Finland is one of the most gender equal countries in the EU (which is not to say that Finland is completely gender equal), it is often women who do most of that half person’s work. So we have women who not only have the all-consuming career, they also take care of most of the care and household chores, and as a result they are often exhausted. If I remember correctly, I think I read somewhere that in Sweden about 80% of the people treated for exhaustion are women. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the numbers were similar elsewhere.

A while back, a good friend of mine – a friend with a high-powered career – talked about this, about how completely exhausted she was. She’s very good at what she does; she simply had too much to do at work. I once heard someone say that if you want something done you should just ask someone who already has too much to do. I guess there’s some truth to that. Either way, it made me think about Sheryl Sandberg and what she says about women needing to draw the line. In her book Lean In, Sandberg explains that companies take what they can get and it’s up to the individual to say when enough is enough. Now I’ve been a bit critical of that because that may feel risky for a person who is well aware that if he or she doesn’t do the job, there are plenty of others who will – we are all replaceable, right? And besides, we have a structural problem on our hands, not an individual one, and trying to create individual solutions doesn’t solve much in the long run, or for anyone else for that matter. But I was thinking, that for someone as senior and appreciated as my friend is, drawing the line and setting some terms of her own is probably possible. We’re so worried what might happen if we say no, but maybe the sky won’t fall if we try. Still, I’m the first to admit, that it is hard to do, even for someone like me who has a pretty clear idea of what my terms are.

I was discussing these thoughts with another good friend of mine, and ironically (because I think I don’t generally generalize) I was accused of generalizing! I was explaining how companies take everything they can and he interrupted me and said no all companies don’t. He apparently actively tells his team members they need to stop and rest and take time off. Which often throws them, ironically; they are so set on working long hours and looking busy because that’s what all important career people do, right? Well, I was impressed and I honestly think he must be a pretty great boss who really cares about his people, despite maybe just seeing wellbeing as a means to efficiency, which in turn is good for the company. But I do wish more bosses were like him because we really need to understand that working people harder isn’t necessarily better. Quantity is not the same as quality.

In Sweden some organizations are experimenting with six-hour days, as opposed to the standard eight, but for the same pay. This has been quite controversial, but the organizations trying this have apparently had very positive results. They say that their employees get the same amount done, if not more, because they don’t get so tired during a six-hour stretch. And then when they finish work they still have half an afternoon and a whole evening left of the day, which means they have time and energy for all the other things they want and need to do. Sounds like these employees have a much more well rounded life than most. Because despite what my friend says about not all companies sucking their employees dry being true, a lot of companies still do.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we have to stop assuming that working more means working better. I don’t know why we think people have to dedicate their whole lives to work. Just because they have other things that are equally important to them in their lives, it is not a threat to how well they do their jobs, so why do we make it so difficult for them? It’s like the employer is a jealous friend who doesn’t want you to have any other friends. Put it like that and it just sounds ridiculous.